. They werewearing the shortest skirts I’ve seen as part of a uniform, and they yawnedthrough the safety procedure. Then the two of them went to the back of theplane, ate, and did their nails… literally. About 20 minutes in, the firstofficer (I’m hoping he wasn’t the pilot) came to the back and proceeded to hiton the two girls while they yawned and continued reading magazines. There wasno water, no nothing. They didn’t even move from their seats THE ENTIRE FLIGHT. It was literallythe worst service I have ever seen.

When I landed, the bags were jammed into little carts, andtwo guys muscled them from the plane to the terminal while both the departing andarriving people stood around waiting for an announcement.

The two ladies from Holland and I were the only white facesin about 200 people. The baggage handler – who just finished unloading theplane – grabbed my bags and we made our way through a throng of people towardsthe exit

The airport looked like something out of Africa. There were200 people on the other side of the fence, just staring in at the passengers –young, old – all crushing up against each other to look. At the exit, a tinydoor that looked very similar to my kitchen door, was jammed with ten peoplelooking in. If there was any security, I didn’t see it.

A man stood there, roughly my age, with a placard with myname and the Sumba Nautil, the place I’m staying. We pushed our way through thepeople, the baggage handler and I, as the other guy went to grab the car.

We got all our bags in the car, I grabbed my camera, and hegrinned through the red-stained teeth of a beetle-nut addict as he jammed thecar into first gear and threw on his ipod. With the subwoofer in back, the rapmusic pumping, and the windows tinted, the Dihatsu SUV took off, passingcars at an alarming rate and barreling down a huge, wide road that was infantastic shape.

We stopped so I could get water, and then I had anothertaste of Sumba. I grabbed two bottles and a coke, and I could not for the lifeof me figure out what numbers the girl was saying. Eventually she had to putthe number on a calculator and push it across. She wasn’t happy. But her eyeslit up when I pulled out about 400,000 rp (about $35). It felt like suddenly Iwas made of gold. A guy came from the other side of the store and startedasking me, "Where are you staying?"

It was menacing and uncomfortable and I headed out back tomy beetle-nut friend with the stereo blasting crappy pop tunes and off we went.

The drive was roughly an hour. We didn’t talk. I shot a tonof pictures. Pictures of trucks with Harley Davidson stickers on the backwindow with a half dozen people hanging from the roof, pictures of large vistasfilled with rice paddies and papaya, even pictures of water buffalo and horsestrodding down the main highway.

I am not in Bali anymore, that’s for sure.

The highlight was coming up on a beautiful vista going 40mph and “What’s Going On?” blaring through the shitty speakers. I’ve neveridentified with that song more. I even took this video with my phone.